Singapore

SG Over 500,000 households benefited from lift upgrading: Khaw

HDB’s Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) has benefited more than 500,000 households living in 5,000 blocks, said National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan in his blog post today.

Launched in 2001, the LUP was a massive initiative which cost S$5 billion and required very complex engineering work, said Mr Khaw.

However, many blocks could not be covered by the programme due to high costs and technical constraints. Nonetheless, the housing board was able to implement it in around 800 more blocks with the help of new technology.

“One innovation was the ‘machine-room-less’ lifts where the machines and controllers are mounted within the lift shaft, eliminating the need for the lift machine room. With this idea, blocks previously constrained by height limits were able to qualify for LUP. Costs and construction time were also minimised.”

“Another idea was to use smaller lower-cost ‘home lifts’ in low-rise blocks which have fewer units. Though smaller, these lifts share the same features as conventional lifts, and are handicapped-friendly.”

Based on existing lift technology, HDB is in the final leg of the programme. Residents of the last few blocks still without new lifts will be surveyed soon and the agency plans to complete the lifts in these areas by 2014. The current lifts will then be improved or terminated.

As some 200 blocks are still without lift access on some floors, “HDB will continue to look for new ideas and pilot new technology to try to make it feasible for lift access to reach these blocks at some stage in the future. We may or may not achieve it, but we will not give up trying”, added Mr Khaw.

Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@allproperty.com.sg